{"id":1458261,"date":"2022-04-29T14:14:42","date_gmt":"2022-04-29T18:14:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1458261"},"modified":"2022-04-29T14:14:54","modified_gmt":"2022-04-29T18:14:54","slug":"racist-incident-that-triggered-virginia-schools-woke-revolution-linked-to-anti-racist-consultants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/racist-incident-that-triggered-virginia-schools-woke-revolution-linked-to-anti-racist-consultants\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Racist\u2019 Incident That Triggered Virginia Schools\u2019 Woke Revolution Linked To \u2018Anti-Racist\u2019 Consultants"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fracist-incident-that-triggered-virginia-schools-woke-revolution-linked-to-anti-racist-consultants%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1458261&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>A three-year-old \u201cracist\u201d incident at a Virginia elementary school that helped trigger the woke revolution that made national headlines and pitted parents against schools boards may have all been based on a misunderstanding \u2013 and maybe even deception, The Daily Wire has learned.<\/p>\n<p>In February 2019, parents of a black Loudoun County Public Schools elementary student complained after their son was instructed to pretend to be part of the Underground Railroad while navigating an obstacle course in phys ed class. The local NAACP chapter accused the school system of racism, prompting the district to hire racial consultants and create an \u201cequity\u201d bureaucracy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe don\u2019t know how much of this is willful ignorance, how much of it is white privilege and how much of it is an intentional racist action or if it\u2019s a combination of all three,\u201d Michelle Thomas, the then-head of the Loudoun branch of the NAACP, told the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/local\/education\/slavery-is-not-a-game-virginia-school-apologizes-over-black-history-month-exercise\/2019\/02\/21\/2a9b753c-3630-11e9-af5b-b51b7ff322e9_story.html\">Washington Post<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The district swung into action, doling out a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/us\/loudoun-spending-6-million-equity-fy22\">$500,000<\/a>\u00a0contract to a firm called Equity Collaborative to help cleanse it of racism.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLoudoun County Public Schools does not endorse the use of instructional strategies that place elementary students in role-playing situations depicting the institution of slavery,\u201d the district said in a statement. \u201cIf your lesson plans contain role-playing or re-enactments around the topic of slavery, it is imperative that you not implement that activity and that no student is placed in such a role.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It was one of Loudoun County schools\u2019 earliest steps down a road that would eventually make it the epicenter of parent-school board clashes over transgender, race, and sex education policies. The curriculum and social policy debate that would erupt two years later in Loudoun County drove national headlines and animated political races around the country.<\/p>\n<p>Yet it all appears to be rooted in confusion over the far Left\u2019s penchant for teaching \u201canti-racism\u201d by employing tactics that are themselves objectively racist and by knee-jerk reactions of local leaders quick to accuse and quicker to apologize.<\/p>\n<p>The Daily Wire has learned that Equity Collaborative\u2019s owner, Jamie Almanzan, previously worked as Director of Learning and Teaching at Pacific Education Group (PEG), a race consultant that helped push an Underground Railroad role-play lesson. Almazan\u2019s old boss at PEG was Glenn Singleton, author of the 2012 book \u201cMore Courageous Conversations About Race\u201d and a leader in \u201canti-racist\u201d school curricula.<\/p>\n<p>Singleton\u2019s book\u00a0includes a section by\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.arts-us.org\/our-staff\">Anthony Galloway<\/a>, who writes that he worked for a school district where \u201cthe PEG Beyond Diversity seminar was offered free to all staff\u2026 I put together a list of suggestions for districts to partner around including the Underground Railroad experience.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Galloway\u2019s suggestions for school districts, first highlighted by Fight for Schools Executive Director\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2021\/05\/28\/you-wont-believe-how-activists-pushed-loudoun-county-schools-into-critical-race-theory\/\">Ian Prior<\/a>, included having\u00a0\u201cstudents explore their own racial and cultural identity through their: Study of critical race theory\u2026 [and] Experience in the Underground Railroad Simulation (a 30-year-old program founded in MN).\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Singleton oversaw far more disturbing versions of physical racial role-playing in Minnesota, as reported in this reporter\u2019s book, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Race-Bottom-Uncovering-Destroying-Education\/dp\/0063056720\/\">Race to the Bottom<\/a>.\u201d In one 2009 incident, Singleton hired actors who took children from their classroom in the overwhelmingly white town of Eden Prairie, chained them together, blindfolded them and drove them to a park, then ran after them angrily as they fled. When the actors caught them, they had the children write down the things they loved, then took the paper away. The ordeal was purported to teach \u201ctolerance.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Taxpayers paid Singleton $31,000 for the event.<\/p>\n<div class=\"image\"><\/div>\n<p>Soon after, an exercise similar to Galloway\u2019s Underground Railroad scenario had made it into conferences, including the Virginia Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, which brought it to educators in 2011.<\/p>\n<div class=\"image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-375091\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/pe-2011.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"979\" height=\"237\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/pe-2011.png 979w, https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2022\/04\/pe-2011-300x73.png 300w, https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2022\/04\/pe-2011-768x186.png 768w\" \/><\/div>\n<p>By 2018, the lesson had made its way into Madison Trust Elementary, the Loudoun County school where the child\u2019s participation sparked outrage. In newly obtained records, an LCPS curriculum manager wrote a month prior to the February 2019 incident that Thomas, the local NAACP official and a pastor, had actually vetted a lesson involving slavery role-playing that upset some parents. Thomas, who also ran the Loudoun Freedom Center, was asked to weigh in to help ensure the curriculum was \u201cinclusive and equitable.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe specifically discussed the activity in question, and Pastor Thomas recommended having the WHOLE class take on one perspective at a time,\u201d Patty Coggins, LCPS\u2019 social science supervisor wrote at the time. \u201cPastor Michelle also volunteered to speak to any African American parents who had questions about our approach to tackling these sensitive, yet vital conversations and activities.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with The Daily Wire, Thomas said she reviewed a lesson in history class in which fourth-graders adopted the perspective of slaves, and that it is not the same as the physical education obstacle course lesson.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s one thing to say, \u2018take on a persona,\u2019 and another where they\u2019re crawling through an obstacle course,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>She also said she did not support the exercise in history class \u2014 which her daughter took part in and was offended by \u2014 but had okayed it with some conditions as a compromise.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI could only offer input to the extent allowable,\u201d she said. \u201cThat was the compromise, that you can\u2019t choose one singled-out child.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Thomas said she could not be held responsible for exercises pushed by other black racial activists like Galloway and Singleton, and that unlike other \u201cequity\u201d activists who think racial lessons should seep into every subject, she thinks \u201ckids should be free from that in art, music, PE. You don\u2019t expect a person who\u2019s not a physical education teacher to teach your kid PE, so you shouldn\u2019t want a PE teacher to teach your kids\u201d about race.<\/p>\n<p>Scott Mineo, the founder of the Loudoun-based\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/stoplcpscrt.com\/2022\/03\/25\/busted-michelle-thomas-loudoun-freedom-center-orchestrated-entire-runaway-slave-game-incident-in-2019\/\">Parents Against Critical Theory (PACT)<\/a>, said the saga shows how toxic the movement to force extreme \u201canti-racist\u201d curriculum into schools can be.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo know that this was a sanctioned lesson in the state of Virginia and then create faux outrage and then bring in the Equity Collaborative whose founder worked for a guy who ran similar lessons, it\u2019s so perverse it\u2019s not even funny,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/EquityCollab?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@EquityCollab<\/a> consultant saying public schools are not for learning because the kids have the internet. Instead he wants to focus on building \u201crelationships\u201d. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LCPSOfficial?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@LCPSOfficial<\/a> has paid this group hundreds of thousands of \ud83d\udcb2\ud83d\udcb2. Is this why LCPS is not concerned about learning loss? <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/jPx4HYEJi6\">pic.twitter.com\/jPx4HYEJi6<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Moms For Liberty Loudoun (@Moms4LibLoudoun) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Moms4LibLoudoun\/status\/1514637988772421642?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 14, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Almanzan, the consultant who landed a lucrative contract to root out the very kinds of lessons his mentor and other anti-racist peers had previously advocated, should have told the district the Underground Railroad lesson was never meant to be racist, Mineo said. Instead, Equity Collaborative produced an audit that depicted Loudoun as systemically racist \u2014 and in need of more racial consulting contracts \u2014 by offering a series of dubious allegations without evidence, including \u201cschool sites being visited by members of the KKK.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey smelled the money and were hoping no one would find out about their past,\u201d Mineo said. \u201cAnd now they\u2019ve been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars based on deception.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Almanzan did not return a request for comment.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Related: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/the-disgraced-teacher-who-took-the-name-of-an-egyptian-god-and-radicalized-a-school-district\">The Disgraced Teacher Who Took The Name Of An Egyptian God And Radicalized A School District<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>The Daily Wire is building up its investigative reporting team to bring you the stories the legacy media refuse to cover. Support journalism that matters and join one of the fastest-growing conservative media companies in America by <a href=\"https:\/\/utm.io\/ueuP8\">becoming a Daily Wire member today<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A three-year-old \u201cracist\u201d incident at a Virginia elementary school that helped trigger the woke revolution that made national headlines and pitted parents against schools boards may have all been based<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":1898494,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1458261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1458261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1458261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1458261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1898494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1458261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1458261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1458261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}